Dawning Sun
by youkai chick supreme
Summary: It's always darkest before the dawn. But Riku soon learns that dawn always appears despite how dark it turns. Sequel to Smash.


A/N: Okay, so some people said make "Smash" into a chapter fic, some said do a sequel, and a select few said leave it stand alone. I decided to make a sequel, so if people want to pretend it stopped at "Smash," this makes it easier on them.

Disclaimer: Oh yes, the money I'm making off of this is totally rolling in at this point! (Mmmmm, sarcasm, isn't it delicious?) Seriously though, I own a cat, want him? We can go to court and battle it out over my cat. Done.

Anyways, here we go!

* * *

Sometimes I can look at her and remember what it felt like to hate her. I can watch her, discretely, out of the corner of my eye, as she paints her newly sketched landscape (the only thing she paints now, no more portraits), and I am taken back to those months ago. Months when _he_ was still around.

She cries sometimes, even now. She thinks I can't hear her, but the walls are so thin in this apartment. She has cut back to only once every other week or so; and her cries are less violent, more accepting, but I can hear her.

She's taken to drinking now. Not enough to be obliterated out of her mind, but enough to be drunk, nearly constantly. Sometimes I'll come in from smoking on the balcony, or from work, and she'll be sip-sip-sipping from her glass, clutching it a little too tightly, and it'll be obvious what's in it. And sometimes, she'll be crying.

It's what we do now. Mine-chan drinks and cries. I smoke and work. Thank god, I stopped crying years ago. Even _his_ exit from our lives won't make me start again. Hell, I'm afraid that if I start again, I'll never stop.

Putting out my cigarette on the curb and leaving it there, I push my thoughts to the back-burner and get up slowly and dig in my pocket for my keys. Mine-chan is sure to have locked herself in, she always does nowadays.

The walk up three flights feels quicker than it should. The brass numbers on our door have tarnished, I realize as I unlock the door. Mine-chan is not in the kitchen or living room. Using my brilliant deduction skills, I amble over to her closed door and knock softly.

Everything I do now is softly.

She doesn't answer when I call her name and when I peek in, she is sitting at her easel, painting. She's off in her own world again, leaving me in to wallow in the silence left behind.

I can't take the silence. I've been dealing with her silence for 3 months now. And I was dealing with silence for 2 years before that. I can't do it anymore. Living like this is killing us both, and I don't know what to do anymore. I need a cigarette. Badly.

I know I should cut back and just go without since I had one not just 5 minutes ago, but I feel as if I'll die if I don't get some nicotine in my system, now. So turning and closing her door, softly, I grab my keys from the table and check that I have money, and I'm off.

It's a short way to the gas station, hardly 5 blocks, so I walk because money is already tight; it's either walk and smoke or drive and quit. I choose the former.

Kairi is blowing up my cell for the millionth time, but I can't stand to talk to her at this point. ("Riku! Oh my god! Where have you been? Oh my god! We haven't talked in _forever!_ Blah, blah, blah, blah!" No thanks.) It's not like she has anything interesting to say anyways, she never does.

My phone beeps a few seconds later; a new message. Sighing softly I pop open my screen and call voice mail. I'm shocked when an unusually somber voice fills my ear.

"Riku? Hey, it's me, Kairi. I… Can you call me please? I need to talk to you. Call me _as soon_ as you get this, okay? …Love ya." It's almost as if she added the last phrase as an after-thought. She sounded… sad. Not like the Kairi I know.

"Kairi, what's wrong?" I ask as soon as I hear the almost silent beep that signals someone answered, not even waiting for her greeting.

"Promise you won't be mad at me. Riku, please promise that no matter what I tell you, you won't be mad at me. Please?" She's pleading, mumbling slightly. I can just picture her speaking around the thumb she has no doubt in her mouth, chewing the nail; her most famous nervous habit.

"I won't be mad." I promise emotionlessly.

"Oh Riku… oh Riku, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, you have to believe me, I didn't mean to do it." She rambles a bit, as is her style, and I zone out on my walk until one word catches my attention. And with that one word, I willingly break my promise to her.

"What about Sora, Kairi?" She is the only person I ever told my secret to, she's the only one who knows of my secret obsession.

"I didn't mean to Riku, I really didn't…"

"What did you do Kairi?" I cut her off sharply, before she has the chance to get carried away.

"I've been dating him for the last 3 weeks… I am so sorry Riku; I didn't mean to lie to you. And I _never_ wanted to hurt you. Oh my god, please, please say you can forgive me—" And off she goes begging for my forgiveness, but I'm done listening to her excuses. All she has ever had for me has been excuses and I'm sick of it.

Bringing my phone from my ear I close it silently and put it in my pocket, ignoring it as a mono-tonal version of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major repeatedly plays. I don't want to talk to her. I _never_ want to talk to her again.

But as my cell goes off for the 13th time, I realize she won't give up.

"Why don't you ask him about the girlfriend he has had for the last 3 years, huh Kairi?" I don't even give her time to respond before I end the call again, this time turning my phone off. Who else would call me anyway? She was the only friend I had left.

And now, alone again.

I've made it to the gas station before I realized it, mind occupied with thoughts of Kairi and Sora, my feet knowing the walk better than I had thought. Walking in and straight to the counter I deadpan my brand, Parliament menthols, pay the cashier, taking the little pack of matches he silently hands me, and leave.

Immediately I tear the cellophane wrap away, fisting it up and pocketing it, and light up a cigarette with shaking, fumbling fingers.

"You know those things will kill you right?" A familiar voice questions softly and my heart breaks all over again.

I quirk an eyebrow as I bury my pain, hiding it from his deceptively innocent gaze. God, he's as beautiful as ever, standing beside me in a fitted red tee and baggy, ripped jeans. And it still kills me inside.

So I choose to kill him a little too.

"How's Kairi, you two are dating right? Or was it you who has a girlfriend; you know, been together for 3 years, no? Hmm, which is it, I'm so forgetful." He looks as if I've got a gun pointed to his temple, all sweaty and jumpy, yet still oddly attractive. He's become uncharacteristically silent, and his smile has run away.

"Ahh, so you are dating them both. Interesting." I exhale the words on a puff of nicotine scented smoke, blowing them into this face, making him cough slightly.

"You… you know Kairi?" Sora fidgets with the hem of his shirt and glances into my eyes before turning to look at whoever has just pulled into the parking space in front of us.

"Oh yes, quite well." My voice belies how hurt I am that this boy beside me will screw around with countless girls apparently, but not my sister, not me. What is wrong with us, I wonder, and what is wrong with me for wondering that?

"Ummm, I was going to tell her. I am going to, so could you, you know, could you not…"

"Oh she knows. I told her already. And if I knew who your girlfriend was, I'd tell her too. I have no loyalty ties to you."

For a moment neither one of us speaks. And the moment drags on into infinity as I pull another drag from my cigarette and Sora stands there looking like a lost little lamb. Or should I say a lost little wolf in lamb-skin jammies.

"You're really something Riku." He says bitterly, and I have to remind myself not to be excited that he still knows my name.

"That's where you're wrong, kid. _You_ are the one who's something. You broke my sister's heart, really fucked with her head, you know? And now you're doing the same thing to Kairi, my friend. Heh. You're some kind of special, aren't you?" I don't throw my own misery into the mix because he won't care. After all, I'm not an angelic, petite blonde girl, or a sassy, smiley red-headed vixen. I'm a tall, broad shouldered _boy_. So why should straight little Sora give a damn if he's fucked me up too?

"I never touched your sister, and even if I did, I don't need to explain myself to you." He's in my face, brow taut, arms flexed, hands balled into fists, but he doesn't scare me. He's a fool if he thinks I'm scared.

Faster than he can blink, I've got him hauled up by his shirt, almost a good foot off the ground until he's at my eye level. "Wrong." I breathe into his face, careful to keep my still burning cigarette away from the fabric of his clothing. I'm mad, but I don't want to light him on fire. Not yet at least.

"Wrong." I reiterate. "You _do_ have to answer to me because it's my life you're fucking up. Who do I have left Sora? Who do I have left now that you've destroyed everything!"

Shoving him away, I watch as he stumbles over the lip of the curb and lands on the hood of a car. It doesn't leave me as satisfied as I thought it would, to see him sprawled out on some SUV, completely shocked. It just makes me sad.

"What the hell are you talking about? Are you completely nuts or did I just catch you on a good day?" He straightens before the owner can come bitch us out, but remains out of touching distance, wary of what I might do next.

"Forget it. Just forget everything… And do everyone a favor, next time you see me, don't talk to me. I'll do the same." I put out my cigarette on the brick wall I was previously leaning against and let it fall. I don't have to energy to walk to the garbage and I don't even want to think about my walk home.

Sora doesn't say anything so I gladly take that as my cue to leave. My mind drifts as my body drifts across the parking lot, then the road, then someone's pristine lawn. I think I'm going the right direction, but even if I'm not, I don't really care. As long as wherever my feet take me is away from Sora.

I don't expect Mine-chan to be coherent as I unlock the door and enter the living room. She usually naps away her afternoons, has since she was 14, since the accident that left me as her 17 year old legal guardian.

I'm shocked when I see her on the couch with her friend Roxas, drinking tea and laughing like she's never been happier. She looks okay, like heartache has never touched her.

"Oh! Riku-aniki! Look who's back from vacation, aren't you happy?" Roxas smiles at me, a coy little smile I always found cute but never really thought about, and I realize it's okay. It's all going to be okay.

Smiling at the both of them I shrug off my jacket and say, "Yes, Mine-chan, I'm very happy."

The End

* * *

Note: I don't know if that ending is satisfactory; I liked it, but since when does that mean anything. So what do you think?

I just realized, I never gave them ages. Well, you can do the math. And yes, their parents died, Riku is Namine's guardian, that's why they're struggling (you could figure that out from the context, yes?).

Hmmm, almost seems like Roxas stepped in and saved the day for both siblings, no? Eh, oh well.

Not the happiest ending, but it shows promise for their future, right? And that's something (especially coming from me). This is the end of this universe I think. So savor it! And review my darlings, if you enjoyed it.


End file.
